The difference between 1 mana and 2 mana is huge, and that gap grows exponentially as you move up in cost. A type of combo we try to avoid is one that can win in one turn from an empty board, such as storm. Interaction spells like counters don't even work against it; you need a specific type of counter like Stifle or Flusterstorm. Given how little these cards ask of you and how powerful they can be when cast early, they seem like clear and obvious inclusions at the top of the list. A huge percentage of the MTG community loves playing Commander, and really, who can blame them.

Part of the appeal to Commander is also the fact that players can utilize cards that otherwise may not have had their opportunities in the spotlight in various competitive Constructed formats. There is a wide range of cards that are extra strong in Commander by comparison. Today, we are going to look at the absolute best cards available in Commander. These include elite mana rocks, combo pieces, interaction, and more. Without further ado, here are the top 12 MTG best Commander cards. Many “best practice guides” suggest 10 removal spells and 10 card draw spells.

Stasis and Winter Orb prevent Lands for all players from untapping like normal. Trinisphere makes everyone pay at least three mana to cast their spells, which can both make it difficult for players to cast multiple spells during the same turn. In some instances, Trinisphere can lock players from casting spells at all if they don’t have enough Lands to begin with.

Finally, at the end of turn (meaning during the cleanup step), Mutavault's effect ends and your Shards return to their base type of enchantment only. This Screaming Nemesis Combo deck comes to us via the fine folks at MTG Goldfish. By now, you’ve almost certainly seen Screaming Nemesis around if you’ve played Magic at all lately.

VS FULL MAGIC DAMAGE TANKY TEAM

That being said, we can focus on improving our own threat assessment. I would simply like to remind players once again, that transforming a battle card counts as casting. As such, if you ever cast anything before flipping a battle, or if you cast that battle on the same turn, it will not transform and just fizzle if Phyrexian Censor is in play. You can use Wheel of Fortune in combination with Jeska’s Will to net a ton of red mana while repeatedly casting Wheel of Fortune. The world is your oyster, as Underworld Breach is one of the easiest and most versatile ways to quickly win the game in Commander.

To do so it takes the original instance of damage and creates a new one for you to target anew. This plays very nicely indeed with effects that double your damage, such as Solphim, Mayhem Dominus. Let’s take a look at what happens mathematically when we use a removal spell.

Both Rakdos Vampires and Amalia were top-tier decks for the bulk of last year until their key cards were struck down during the August bans. Now the format is much more tempo-driven, with the likes of Rakdos Midrange and Selesnya Company ruling the roost. Just this week, a new MTG Combo list featuring mtg combo Standard superstar Screaming Nemesis has come to light. Again, there isn't anything special or unique about this tried and tested combo type. It's just that this time, the specific coverage that each card provides (Humans, Angels, Selesnya colors, etc.) tilts the balance quite considerably into the pesky category. Shame that it isn't as popular as it should be right now, since (creature) hexproof isn't exactly the hottest keyword ability in Standard right now.

Weirdly Pesky MTG Combos and Interactions of Recent Standard

Path to ExilePath to Exile, PongifyPongify and Nature's ClaimNature's Claim all have “downsides” and are limited, but the efficiency just makes them so strong. My deckbuilding leans toward a split of 75% efficient/cheap and 25% flexible. Let’s start with counterspells, since we've discussed a lot of removal. At higher power levels, all your counterspells should sit at 0-2 mana. Almost every set brings us a new variety of the 3-mana counterspell, and none have made the cut for me yet. I find myself much more likely to drop even a 2-mana counterspell for a more restrictive 1-mana counterspell, such as An Offer You Can't RefuseAn Offer You Can't Refuse.

MTG Spoilers: How to Spot the Next Game-Changing Card Before Everyone Else

We had a lengthy conversation about this topic, but an example is some of the painstaking practice you needed to do if you wanted to play Jeskai Mutate on MTG Arena when it was Standard legal. The Rope is in the game to prevent players from slow play in the situation where the opponent is winning. This is a necessary evil for the game but makes playing combo decks very difficult.

Then, casting Sickening Dreams with a ton of cards in hand can win the game outright. On the flip side, though, Force of Will does require you to exile a blue card from your hand in order to cast it. This is still a small cost to pay, though, for a Counterspell that you can cast for free. This group of cards further disrupt the ability of your opponents to properly play the game.

You can actually pull off the full combo using these three cards alone, or they can sub in for any of the cards mentioned above. This gives the deck a surprising amount of redundancy, which is fantastic for any combo list. Screaming Nemesis lets you redirect any damage deal to it to another target.

This card is extremely good against cards with Cascade or Suspend as well, for example. This card being efficient interaction that affects every opponent at once makes it a premium Commander option. I have a question about how Niko, Light of Hope's ability interact with type-changing effects such as those from creature-lands. Layers are a complex subset of rules within MTG that determine what order continuous effects are applied. In this case, the two layers that matter are layer one and layer six.